The dragged-out trademark lawsuit between Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) and Google over the "Gmail" mark has been resolved, with Google yielding the name. Google has renamed Britain's version of Gmail to googlemail. This is an odd resolution. IIIR's claim to the mark is based on an in-house mail system, and not a public product that could conceivably cause consumer confusion—the traditional criterion of trademakr infringement suits. Maybe Google simply got tired of deneding this one, with more important litigative irons in the fire.
Google Drops Gmail in Britain
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. I find it strange that they didn't use @googlemail.com or @google.com from the start for branding purposes. It works for Yahoo.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by SEO articles
3. That kind of branding was more important in the "old days" (i.e., the 1990s) when not so many people were familiar with email or internet companies. Everyone already knows about Google. The extra branding they would get from the email product is minimal.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Andy
4. Same situation in Germany. If you are in Germany or the UK and want a real gmail.com address, not a googlemail.com address, there is a workaround for you. In Germany, the registration URL contains the string gd=1. Change it to gd=0 and you get a gmail.com address. The UK version will probably have a similar parameter. (Source: http://www.golem.de/0509/40207.html)
5. At least Google will not have millions of bounce backs. If they made it so you COULD NOT use the "@gmail.com" extension there would be a lot of email messages that would get bounced back to the sender.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Neil Patel
1. However, from everything I've read about it, your @gmail.com address is still going to work, even in the UK. The gmail.com domain is owned by google, so anything sent to that is still going to make it through. For legal reasons they cant call themselves gmail in the UK, so they've had to make the @googlemail.com extension. Sending mail to zyx@gmail.com or to xyz@googlemail.com will have to exact same result.
So the name is going to change on the login page, but your account is still going to be the same and mail sent to @gmail.com is still going to get through to you.
Seems kinda pointless doesn't it?
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Dylan